Chapter 408 Uncle Everett

    Chapter 408 Uncle Everett

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    A small battalion of white coats swept in, monitors and stethoscopes swinging like artillery. Laura and Leander retreated to the corner, hearts in their throats.

    “When the examination ended, the lead physician offered a measured smile and–soft enough to keep her calm–outlined what they had found.

    Her throat, scorched by smoke, was swollen and blistered. A fracture sliced across her right shin, and scattered cuts mapped her skin. Full recovery, the doctor predicted, would demand roughly two months.”

    The prognosis, grim on paper, felt almost merciful to Quinn; she had imagined far worse during the ck drift of unconsciousness.

    After the medical team dispersed, Quinn turned to Leander and Laura. “How is Julius?” she asked, the name pressing against the raw edges of her voice.

    In her haze, she half–remembered him visiting, words drifting through hera like distant radio static. Were those memories real, or only fevered dreams?

    Leander answered gently. “He lost quite a bit of blood, and the wound on his back was severe, but no tendons were damaged. He’s already been discharged.”

    “What?” The single word burst from Quinn in disbelief. “Discharged?”

    Quinn recalled what the physician had told her: she had been unconscious for two full days. That span now felt both impossibly brief and terrifyingly long, like a dark tunnel that had swallowed forty–eight hours of her life.

    But what stunned her even more was the fact that Julius, shattered as he had been, had already been cleared ito /ileave the hospital after only two days.

    “Don’t torture yourself, Quinn,” Laura murmured, instantly sensing the storm of worry brewing behind her friend’s zed eyes. “Even if Julius has left the hospital, the Whitethorn residence has round–the–clock medical staff. He won’t tumble into danger. You, on the other hand, slept for two whole days. You have no idea how close I came to shaking you awake just to make sure you were still here.”

    She ached to fling her arms around Quinn, but thework of bandages and the tremor in Quinn’s limbs forced her to keep that impulse leashed.

    “Sorry for putting you through that,” Quim rasped, every syble scraping her blistered throat. “What about Serena? Is she all right?”

    17:14 Thu, Sep 18 …

    Chapter 408 Uncle Everett

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    “She’s alive,” Leander reported, voice t yet undeniably relieved. “Two hours after the firefighters dragged her out, she woke up. She tried to bolt, of course. I intercepted her. The team on scene discovered a pistol, recently fired, carrying her fingerprints. She’s now sitting in a cell at the police station.”

    The news struck Quinn like cold water to the face. In the hours she had lost, the world had already rewritten itself twice.

    “Quinn, when the fire broke out, why were you with Serena? Was that gun meant for you?” Though Serena kept her mouth shut at the station, the scattered evidence allowed him to assemble a grim puzzle all the same.

    “Yes,” Quinn admitted, voice a thin rasp. “She wanted to kill me.”

    Every word scoured her burnt throat, each vowel igniting sparks of pain that danced behind her sternum.

    She tried her best to sketch the events for them–how Serena had lured her inside, how the first lick of me had coincided with the metallic click of the safetying off.

    Laura’s jaw locked; she tasted metal behind her teeth. “You should have left that woman to the mes,” she hissed. “All that over an old quarrel? Murder is her answer?”

    Ridiculous–yes, the word rang inside Quinn’s skull like a bell.

    Their conflict had never brushed against the borders of life and death. It had been petty, yes, but never fatal.

    “That’s because she knew who you really are,” Leander said quietly. The revtion unfurled with deliberate weight, like an indictment sealed in wax.

    Quinn blinked, turning toward her brother as if hoping his face held a different truth.

    “She feared Uncle Everett would recognize you from the ruby ne you wore at the g,” Leander continued. “iSo /ishe decided the easiest way to keep the secret was to kill you and take the ne. No body, no proof, no niece for him to find.”

    Only then did Quinn remember that, upon waking, her brother had indeed mentioned an uncle–an odd detail she had pushed aside in the fog of morphine and worry,

    Of course she had; her brain had been a swirling snow globe, attention fixed on Julius‘ injuries

    and Serena.

    “Uncle… Who? Where is he?” Quinn asked, tension coiling in her voice.

    17:14 Thu, Sep 18 ..

    Chapter 408 Uncle Everett

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    “Everett Fane,” Leander said. “Head of the Fane family. You’ve met him. He’s Mom’s elder brother. Which makes him our uncle, Quinn.”

    Quinn’s pupils shrank to pinpoints; disbelief washed over her features like a sudden tide.

    Laura, having learned the truth while Quinn slept, merely folded her arms and watched the revtionnd without any trace of surprise.

    During those two days, Laura had witnessed the head of the Fane family stand at Quinn’s bedside more than once, tears trembling on hisshes as he whispered aching apologies.

    Laura’s breath caught in her throat. Until tonight, she had known Everett only through relentless headlines describing an unfeeling titan of industry. Now, watching tenderness soften his austere features, she realized every newspaper clipping had captured only half a man.

    “He’s… our uncle?” Quinn blurted, the question cracking through the hush like ss.